Precast components are often used in the construction of civil engineering projects, such as modern high-rise building projects. The precast may be of various size and thickness. The precast components are typically formed at a manufacturing facility, and then transported to the location in which they are to be erected.
The delivery and erection of the precast at the right time and at the right place is very critical to obtain a successful construction project. Failure to locate a precast piece and incorrect erection does have significant impacts in terms of time and money. It is not only delaying the project schedule, but also increasing costs and waste of the project.
Taking these situations into consideration, equipment that can be used to automatically monitor and track delivery and erection process of a precast is being of interest in civil engineering project. Currently, GPS is widely used to identify and track a precast location. The GPS is installed in precast to be erected. However, deploying GPS for precast tracking is not a preferred method due to some disadvantages it may cause. First, installing GPS on every precast is costly and impractical as the size of the GPS is bulky. The GPS also needs external battery to run, yet the battery may not last long enough. Further, the positioning accuracy of the GPS is poor because antenna of the GPS is unable to withstand vibration and shocks frequently experienced in a construction environment. The communication signal of the GPS is also easily obstructed as successive floors are built and raised.
As an alternative to GPS, Differential GPS (DGPS) is deployed for precast tracking. However, the cost of deployment of DGPS is considerably high, and yet, DGPS is unable to overcome communication signal problem caused by high rise or neighboring buildings.
With such problems related to poor performance of available precast tracking systems, a need of equipment that can accurately identify and track location of a precast thus exists.